Junior continues his cancer treatments, but the prognosis is iffy. Chris, meanwhile, finds himself under suspicion from Paulie.
Plot
Junior Soprano needs surgery for his stomach cancer. Tony helps arrange his care but Junior suspects the first surgical team Tony recommends may be deliberately under-treating him. Junior fires them and insists on Dr. John Kennedy at Columbia-Presbyterian. The process of getting his uncle into a world-class facility is handled with dark comedy, as Tony must orchestrate access to a world that does not normally accommodate his kind of request.
Carmela visits a therapist named Dr. Krakower on her own. Krakower does not operate under the careful accommodations Melfi applies to Tony. He tells Carmela directly that she is complicit in Tony's crimes by staying in the marriage and using the money that comes from violence and exploitation. He tells her he cannot be her therapist because she already knows what she needs to do. It is one of the most honest conversations in the series.
Carmela is shaken but does not leave. She goes home and presses Tony for a large charitable donation to Columbia, framing it as compensation for the life she is living. Tony writes the check. The episode ends without resolution -- which is accurate. Carmela will continue to know what Krakower told her, and she will continue to stay.
Credits
Written by: Lawrence Konner
Directed by: Tim Van Patten